Beyond Patriarchy: Jewish Fathers and Families - Hardcover

Fuchs, Lawrence H.

9780874519419: Beyond Patriarchy: Jewish Fathers and Families

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874519411 ISBN 13: 9780874519419

Publisher: Brandeis University Press, 2000

Is patriarchy necessary to ensure responsible fathering? Lawrence H. Fuchs, author of Family Matters, argues that the link between male dominance and fatherhood is no longer iron-clad. Analyzing the universality of patriarchy and its incentives for cultural fatherhood, Fuchs concedes that the importance of biological differences between the sexes was a possible, even plausible, basis for the evolution of patriarchy. But in this timely work he imagines a new paradigm of fatherhood for a post-patriarchal age, one inspired by the history of Jewish patriarchy. Two millennia ago the rabbis established the strategies to curb the extreme abuses of patriarchy found in all civilizations. They did so by according wives significant sexual and economic rights. In the last two centuries as Jews became more integrated into the societies in which they lived, their unique variation of patriarchy was disrupted. Fuchs argues that the Jewish story sets the precedent for fundamental change in the nature of patriarchy today, thus breaking what may have been the evolutionary connection between male dominance and incentives for fatherhood. It is Fuchs's startling conclusion that the Jewish precedent points to the next step in evolution: fathers without patriarchy.

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From the Publisher:

6 x 9 trim. LC 00--00842

From the Inside Flap:

"A new and bright beam of light on one of the more problematic challenges of modernity: the radically changing relations between men and women." -- Earl Raab, coauthor of Jews and the New American Scene

"Lawrence Fuchs's lyrical and accessible meditation on Jewish patriarchy blends factual and fictional accounts of Jewish experience across two millennia. Fuchs asks if we can move beyond patriarchy today and still preserve authoritative and loving parenting. His answer to this challenging question can be found in the alternative and ultimately hopeful Jewish model of family life." -- Deborah Dash Moore, author of At Home in America

"Sure to be controversial! A daring answer to a big question -- how to rear competitive, successful, but tender fathers." -- William J. Goode, author of World Changes in Divorce Patterns

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